> From: ·······@csli.STANFORD.EDU (Mark Johnson)
> Someone else just sent a message on the net asking
> why CommonLisp uses different name spaces for variable and function
> definitions. Personally, I think that this is one of the worst
> features of CommonLisp. It makes my programs look like fields of #'
> symbols and funcalls.
I think that having one namespace for functions and variables is an
incredibly big lose. When using languages with only one namespace, I
constantly have to think about what I can call things... It's an
unnecessary burden on the programmer.
Besides, functions and variables are *different*. :-)
> It is also one of the hardest things for
> students to learn - they get continually confused between the use of
> LIST as a function and a variable.
When I was first learning Lisp, it took me forever to understand macros and
backquote. That doesn't make them any less useful.
Jamie
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